240fps at 8K HEVC (H.265) 360 Video because Resolution and Frames per Second Matters

8K HEVC (H.265) at 240FPS 360 Video!

What do we do in our spare time? At 360Rize® we are always testing and innovating our patented 360 Plug-n-Play™ 360 video rigs for you! And excited to announce that you can now film using the, 360Rize™ Pro10 camera rig using GoPro® Hero 6 cameras in 6K Native and 8K (8192×4096) Interpolated at 240fps!! Click HERE to download 8K Examples

The 360 Tech

Let’s Geek Out! WOW, my hard drive is almost full! Yes, your now dealing with much larger file sizes then normal 360 video however the results show tremendous results compared to standard 360 video at 30 fps. The project folder for the truck video was almost 300GBs. The raw footage from the GoPro™ Hero6 camera shoot, Abode Premiere and After Effects files along with the raw stitched footage needs space and processing power; so make sure your machine can handle it.

Since the content was so crisp, the 360 video at 240FPS can make every mistake stand out like a sore thumb. For example if there was a funky stitch line going through the video, at standard 30fps, we might have been able to get away with it. It only appears for 5 to 15 frames, making it easy to mask out the problem in After Effects. However when dealing with 240FPS, that same stitch line could last anywhere from 30 to 150 frames, making post-production work flow incredibly time consuming and challenging with varying results. But worth the Effort!

The 360 Challenge

At first this is how we tackled the video, the same way working with a 30 fps video. We figured lets stitch the footage, to get it close and then fix the flaws in post. Although this method worked to an extent, as mentioned earlier every mistake stood out dramatically. We managed to fix the stitch lines and other abnormalities in the video using After Effects but did not get the results we were looking for. The initial flaws were fixed, but in fixing those we created other opportunities to tackle.

So why is 8K so important

Understanding 8K viewing and being able to create good video quality helps make a good user experience. It’s important to understand that screen resolution for 360 videos is different than standard video screen resolutions. While 360 video features a complete panoramic 360-degree horizontal view and a 180-degree vertical view, it’s important to understand that on most Head Mounted Displays (HMD) a user can only see about 90 degrees FOV (Field of View) at anytime. Viewing the entire sphere of the video involves the user turning and tilting their head and body. At any given moment, a viewer can only see about one-quarter of an immersive video– the slice of the image directly in front of them. So 360 video content, is shot in what we call an Equirectangular ratio of 2:1.

It’s a resolution you are probably very familiar with! If you’ve seen a world map, it is a flat representation of a 360-degree sphere.
While Antarctica appears in this image to be the same width as the equator, we know that flattening the image distorts the actual shape, which is wrapped around the South Pole. The entire bottom edge of the map is concentrated into one point.

The 360 Solution

At some point (especially with creative endeavors) sometimes it is faster, easier and will yield better results if you start over from scratch. Take the lessons learned from the failed project and restart with new knowledge. That is exactly what we did! We created a brand new project from scratch using the same footage. Through trial and error we developed a workflow for working within Autopano or , 360Camman, Adobe Premier and After Effects to get the best results possible. After finishing the new stitch, the video we produced was a hundred times better then what we were working with before, virtually no stitch lines, clean and sharp all the way through.

Tips to getting it right

Before you start stitching your content make sure your video sync is PERFECT! Even at 240 fps with such a high resolution if your video is not perfectly synced you will see problems in the final footage. To solve this issue we highly recommend that you use Adobe Premier to find the video offsets then use 360Camman to reverse those offsets and add into your video stitcher offsets. See screen shots below.

After stitching the content to 8K (8192×4096) PNG frames, we did some general post work such as playing around with time. Speeding up and Slowing down time to really showed off what can be done with 240FPS. The icing on the cake was adding a little color correction and then ready to export.

Importing and Exporting is a little different. We highlight recommend that during stitching use the 8K PNG or JPG frames and import into Premire or After Effects at the higher resolution images sequences. Then compress to 4K, 5.7K or 8K using the Adobe tools. We found the next best thing to get 8K is (HEVC) H.265 currently bundled with Premiere Pro CC 2018, H.265 is designed for higher resolution video as shown below.

360Rize 360 video output to H.265 Capture. If the goal is to achieve to 8K output then H.265 in Adobe Premier is required.

A few people have asked who’s the driver in the video, its our very own CEO & Founder, Michael Kintner. The content shown here is 4K for YouTube Viewing. You can download the 8K version and others examples in our 360 Video Product Examples though the shopping center: (CLICK HERE FOR DOWNLOAD EXAMPLES)